rs
of the Cause of Baha'u'llah feel bound, as their Administrative Order
expands and consolidates itself, to assert and vigilantly apply. The
exigencies of a slowly crystallizing Faith impose upon them a duty which
they cannot shirk, a responsibility they cannot evade.

Nor are they unmindful of the imperative necessity of upholding and of
executing the laws, as distinguished from the principles, ordained by
Baha'u'llah, both of which constitute the warp and woof of the
institutions upon which the structure of His World Order must ultimately
rest. To demonstrate their usefulness and efficacy, to carry out and apply
them, to safeguard their integrity, to grasp their implications, and to
facilitate their propagation Baha'i communities in the East, and recently
in the West, are displaying the utmost effort and are willing, if
necessary, to make whatever sacrifices may be demanded. The day may not be
far distant when in certain countries of the East, in which religious
communities exercise jurisdiction in matters of personal status, Baha'i
Assemblies may be called upon to assume the duties and responsibilities
devolving upon officially constituted Baha'i courts. They will be
empowered, in such matters as marriage, divorce, and inheritance, to
execute and apply, within their respective jurisdictions, and with the
sanction of civil authorities, such laws and ordinances as have been
expressly provided in their Most Holy Book.

The Faith of Baha'u'llah has, in addition to these tendencies and
activities which its evolution is now revealing, demonstrated, in other
spheres, and wherever the illumination of its light has penetrated, the
force of its cohesive strength, of its integrating power, of its
invincible spirit. In the erection and consecration of its House of
Worship in the heart of the North American continent; in the construction
and multiplication of its administrative headquarters in the land of its
birth and in neighboring countries; in the fashioning of the legal
instruments designed to safeguard and regulate the corporate life of its
institutions; in the accumulation of adequate resources, material as well
as cultural, in every continent of the globe; in the endowments which it
has created for itself in the immediate surroundings of its Shrines at its
world center; in the efforts that are being made for the collection, the
verification, and the systematization of the writings of its Founders; in
the measures that a